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TAMPA—As Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final approached on Saturday night, laying a bet on the ultimate champion seemed like something of a fool’s errand.

Heading into Saturday, the series was about as close as statistically possible. Both teams had scored nine goals apiece. Chicago had registered 107 shots on goal; Tampa Bay 104. Every game had been decided by one goal, the first time that had happened since 1968. Neither team had taken so much as a two-goal lead in any one of the contests.

To consider all that and still claim knowledge of the superior team — it’s a big reason why the Vegas books don’t do NFL-sized business on hockey nights.

“You know, I think it’s going to be close the whole way here, just like it has been,” said Jonathan Toews, the Chicago captain.

Indeed, the margins remained slim on Saturday, the Blackhawks winning another one-goal game, this one 2-1 to take a 3-2 series lead. The only other time the Stanley Cup final has seen five straight games decided by a single goal was 1951, when Bill Barilko won the Leafs the Cup in Game 5 overtime.

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Still, as historically tight as it’s been, the Blackhawks continued to separate themselves as prime-time performers on Saturday. Now one win away from their third Stanley Cup in six seasons, Chicago never ceases to find a way to turn coin-flip playoff games into victories. Since the franchise’s 2009 renaissance led by Toews and Patrick Kane, the Blackhawks had been tied 2-2 in eight previous series. Saturday’s triumph increased their win-loss record in Games 5 through 7 of those series to 17-1.

As Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said of his team on Saturday: “These guys find ways. It’s a fun bunch to coach.”

Saturday’s action was more than fun to watch, even if it was dotted with memorable miscues. The assists on Chicago’s first goal, for instance, were officially bestowed upon Teuvo Teravainen and Toews, but they probably both should have been given to Ben Bishop’s frontal lobe.

That’s the area of the brain responsible for judgment and impulse control. Bishop’s didn’t appear to be functioning optimally when the Lightning goaltender left his net in pursuit of a loose puck in the game’s early moments. Bishop, after all, had missed Game 4 with an undisclosed injury that had clearly limited his mobility in Games 2 and 3. And yet there he was, setting out on a race to a puck that was already being pursued competently by Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay’s best defenceman, along with Patrick Sharp, the Blackhawks’ centreman.

It ended in disaster for the Lightning. Bishop crashed into Hedman before Sharp collected the puck and deposited it into an empty net for the easiest of goals and a 1-0 lead.

Small margins, big gaffe.

“In hindsight, yeah, I probably should have stayed in the net,” said Bishop, who explained that he’d been eyeing a stretch pass to Steven Stamkos.

Said Hedman: “I was looking up ice. Didn’t see (Bishop), didn’t hear him. So, stuff like that happens.”

The Blackhawks had their own brain cramp in the opening period. Crawford nearly gifted the Lightning a goal in the early going, whiffing on a clearing attempt intercepted at point-blank range by Nikita Kucherov. Crawford recovered to make a sliding save. Kucherov crashed the left post with his right shoulder and, after he skated off haltingly, didn’t return. To add insult to apparent injury, replays showed Crawford played the puck outside the trapezoid area, a penalty uncalled.

If the Blackhawks dominated the puck in the first period, the Lightning took it back in the second. Midway through the period they broke through. A gorgeous cross-ice pass by Jason Garrison found Valtteri Filppula, whose net-side shot beat Crawford to make it 1-1.

Back and forth it went, the Blackhawks seizing the momentum in the outset of the third period. Kris Versteeg found himself in alone on a partial breakaway. And though his shot attempt was thwarted by a backcheck from Garrison, the puck rolled at Bishop, who coughed up a rebound that landed on the stick of Antoine Vermette. Vermette’s shot from close range made it 2-1, two minutes into the third. It proved to be the winner.

The Blackhawks had late chances to take a two-goal lead. Teravainen, who missed the net on a breakaway earlier in the game, had a shot from the slot in the latter half of the third, shortly after Andrew Desjardins missed from in close. And the home team’s late pressure was incessant, the Lightning outshooting the Blackhawks 15-7 in the final frame.

That Chicago held off the charge set up an intriguing possibility — a chance to win the Cup on home ice for the first time since 1938. The three times the Blackhawks have won it since — in 1961, 2010 and 2013 — they clinched on the road.

“We get to go back to our building — I think everybody’s pretty excited about it,” said Crawford. “But we can’t get ahead of ourselves. It’s going to be an even harder battle.”

Said Quenneville: “The buzz will be off the charts. Look forward to it.”

Game 5 has come to be known as a swing game, and it’s true 70 per cent of teams that have won Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final have gone on to call themselves champions. But four of the past seven teams to fall behind three games to two in the Cup final after a loss in Game 5 have come out on top in Game 7.

“We’re still alive. We’re not out. This is not the press conference that says we’re done,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “I don’t know. I think there are happy days ahead for us. We’ve got to push through this.”

The teams that have pushed through to win Games 6 and 7 after losing Game 5 have needed heroic efforts to do so. The 2001 Avalanche had a Hall of Fame goaltender named Patrick Roy, who allowed precisely one goal in Games 6 and 7 combined. The 2004 Lightning got a double-overtime winner from Martin St. Louis in Game 6 before eking out a 2-1 win in Game 7. The 2009 Penguins became the first team in 20 years to win Game 7 on the road in any of the major North American pro sports. The 2011 Bruins matched Pittsburgh’s feat and set off a riot.

The road from here, in other words, is rarely easy, and always hard to foresee. But suddenly it’s undeniably rougher for the Lightning, facing a team that is coming to define clutch.

“We’ve got one game,” said Stamkos. “It’s going to come down to how much we want (it) and what we’re willing to do.”

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